He's Got a Smile as Wide as the Road to Hell
by OtakuLibra
Summary: In which Winona doesn't dream anymore, until Jim comes home. In which she knows how to deal with nightmares, but not this. Title from Anais Mitchell's "Song They Sang when Rome Fell".


**This was not going to happen. I swear. And then I heard Anais Mitchell's "Song They Sang When Rome Fell." And it happened. Not that I'm too upset about it, though. Winona? Yeah, she's awesome. And (obviously) I love writing her. This is part of "Belief in Angels" verse, and it's set during "Sweetheart." That being said, you don't have to read any of my other fics to get this, but it might help. Also, listen to that song. Seriously. It's /beautiful./**

* * *

It was always nightmares.

When she woke up, it didn't matter that Sam was married and lived on some Earth colony. It didn't matter that Jim was twenty-five and had just saved the world. It was like it just happened, like Sam was five years old and wouldn't let go of her leg because there were so many people and he didn't know what was happening. Like Jim was still a baby, with the terrifying eyes and a tendency to scream if she let him go while he was still conscious.

When she woke up, she would lie there for a minute, staring blankly at the ceiling, waiting for her stomach to untwist itself out of horrified knots. And it _would_, because she was Winona Kirk, and she did not have time for— Well, actually, she _does_, since she retired. But whatever.

Nightmares, she can deal with. She _has_ dealt with. Winona is the best kind of pessimist. Even when things are going well, she's constantly prepared for the moment when everything goes wrong and you can't rely on anything anymore. She's damn good at that. The _Kobayashi Maru_ had nothing on her, because she would have assumed Klingons and been at battle stations before anybody else would realize it. But see, it's safe, that. Nightmares she can deal with, because they're straightforward.

But this? This is backhanded and evil and _cruel_, and Winona doesn't have firewalls for this.

Jim calls. That's what sets it off, she thinks. Jim calls, on video and everything, which is weird. But she sort of expects it, because she's had this sick feeling in her stomach from worrying about him, and she's been drunk for the past, oh, seventy-two hours or so, and then she saw the _news_ and all she can say is he's _lucky_ he called her on video, because otherwise she'd prove that really? Pissed-off Romulans have _nothing_ on her.

Winona hasn't dreamed in awhile. It used to be nightmares, and then it was just these vague pictures, feelings she couldn't quite make out, and then she stopped dreaming at all. She'd just pass out on whatever flat surface was closest. It wasn't pretty, but Winona doesn't live in pretty.

The night before Jim comes home, she dreams about George.

There isn't much to say about that. It happens.

She dreams that George is alive, that Winona is standing on the porch of the house in Riverside, and Jimmy's curled up against her shoulder, and George is _there_. And he's smiling, and it's _beautiful_. Winona's pretty sure she's crying, and it's ridiculous, and Jimmy's waking up because she can't keep her shoulders from shaking.

"He's gonna start crying if you don't stop doing that, sweetheart." And _oh shit_, it's been way too long since she heard his voice.

She gives him that look, the one that says he'd better back off before she gets pissed and does something crazy. The one that just makes him grin and grin and Winona wants to slap that smile off his face. Wants to hold Jimmy as close to her as she can and knock George over with her other hand, just hit him and hit him until he's gone.

There is _death_ in that smile, and Winona hates how much she loves him.

She's stopped crying. George, that bastard, knows just how to deal with her. She needs that, misses that, might not have fucked up her kids so bad if she'd had that. George knew when to let the insanity happen—knew when he _couldn't stop_ the insanity from happening—and he knew when to stroke her hair and tell her to calm the fuck down and think.

Jim will tell her—has told her—that she did not fuck them up, him and Sam. It's bullshit, but Jim's got a little ghost of George's smile, so he's a bastard anyway. Except that he's also got Winona's smile, the one that's a little ragged at the edges, too sharp to be warm. She doesn't quite know what to do with that.

George is still smiling at her, hands cupping her face, letting her feel him. And then he's reaching for Jimmy, and Winona gives him up numbly, knowing that George deserves this, to see his son for the first time.

"Nona, sweetheart, he's beautiful." She nods, because yes, she knows.

"He looks like you," she whispers numbly, like that's enough. It isn't, but George has always known how to take what he can get, from her. He knows her too well.

"Nah," he says, and Jimmy's holding onto George's finger, and there's this light, from where the sun's setting somewhere outside the window, and it's making George look like an angel, and it's too much. "He looks like _you_. Look at those eyes."

She barks out a laugh, bitter. "Not the eyes, George. Those are all yours."

They aren't. Not all. But she doesn't want to tell him that. Maybe he doesn't know. Right.

And then all of a sudden Jimmy's gone, and Winona knows she should be worried about that, but it's a dream, and she isn't, really. And George holds her, and there's music from somewhere, and they're not really dancing, because Winona doesn't know how. George might, but if he does he knows it's not her style. It's not really his, either. So he just holds her, and there may or may not be some sort of vague swaying going on. Winona's got her hand pressed to his chest. She won't remember, when she wakes up, if there was a heartbeat, but it doesn't matter, because George has his hand over hers and it's warm and rough and like the perfect little Midwest farmboy he always sort of was.

And then she wakes up. She doesn't cry, because it's _stupid_. And she winces a little, because she's being stubborn, a petulant child, really. It almost makes her smile, the way Jim gets that from her.

It's all his fault, of course. And some indistinct part of her hates him for that. It never lasts.

You don't go through what she's been through with Jim and end up hating that person. You just don't. Like how she can pretend all she wants to hate Chris Pike, but at least he's there. When you're Winona, you don't get to pick and choose your safety nets. You don't have nearly enough to afford that. And they tend to be just as damaged as you are, anyway.

This is what she thinks the next morning, after two cups of Irish coffee, when she meets Jim at the shuttle station. What he's never understood is that George may have saved the both of them, but Jim saved Winona, the day he was born. Without him, she's not sure what she would have done. She's not sure exactly how to tell him this, and she's not sure he'd want to hear it if she was.

He needs to learn how to be bigger than the shadow of his family.

He's gotten really tall. It's funny how she never noticed that. Not that she'd been around much to notice. But anyway, he's gotten really tall, and she thinks it's strange that he has to bend down a little to hug her. Hell, she thinks it's strange that he hugs her at all.

And then she sees his eyes, and it's like he's in free fall. Like he's trying to use her as a handhold, to slow it down. She's not enough. She already knows.

But she'll drink with him, because that might be all she can do, and she's willing to, even if it doesn't change anything, in the end.

He tells her about the _Narada_, but not about whatever's eating the light in his eyes, and Winona tells him about Riverside, but not about her dream. They hold on to each other because they define each other, in a weird way. Both of them hate this, but not each other. It's not quite a paradox, but it's damned close. They fucking _live_ in _damned close_. Like one little event, one decision, one reach and grasp could have changed everything, could have made them less or more than what they are. It's the empty space in between those moments, those chances. That's all they've got.

The booze isn't a fire escape, but it's lets them just _be_, for a little while.

Winona's never been good with that.

But Jim goes back to his ship, to boldly go and all that, and Winona goes back to the house, which was empty and is even more so now, without dreams to fill it.


End file.
